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Re: [Synoptic-L] Marcus: Mark v2

Karel, The James nonsense is nothing very profound, and in any case it was already explained in my note as quoted. But here is another explanation, since it

Message 1 of 9
, Apr 13, 2009

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Karel,

The "James nonsense" is nothing very profound, and in any case it was
already explained in my note as quoted. But here is another explanation,
since it was asked for.

Where the Greek text of the NT has IAKWB or IAKWBOS, Continental scholars
render as we might expect (eg, Dibelius, "Der Brief des Jakobus"). Anglo
scholars invariably substitute "James." But only in the NT; when they are
translating or discussing the OT, Bible readers instead encounter "Jacob."
This business of de-Judaizing the NT has long been obsolete, especially in
light of recent trends to restore Jewishness to Jesus (eg, Crossan, "The
Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant"). So far so
good. As for Jesus's brother, by way of tidying up the subject generally, it
would be welcome if someone would take the first move in the right
direction. Marcus in his preface to v1 notes the need to do so (articulated
by David Noel Freedman - I am still paraphrasing my original note), but does
not come up with sufficient nerve to follow through. Not that he would do so
in the gap between his v1 and v2, but his v1 was disappointing in this
regard.

Perhaps, as I earlier suggested, it needs an initiative from on high. The
English Queen, who as far as I am aware (and compared to Henry VIII) has so
far done very little in support of scholarship, might rename a highly
visible London entity, which in fact belongs to her, so that she can do with
it as she likes, as "the Court of Saint Jacob." Thus emboldened, and with
royal precedent and favor doing their bit, we might yet see something from
the rank and file of the learned but timid.

The roster of Jesus's brothers is an interesting one, and certainly implies
a strongly patriarchal and nationalistic family. Jacob, Joseph, Simon,
Judas. Half of these names, here and/or elsewhere (eg, "Epistle of Jude"),
and their important historical significance, are systematically masked for
the readers of English translations. I don't believe in keeping such
information concealed within the Guild of the Greeked. I believe in letting
it out. The public mind would need less correcting if it had been better
supplied in the first place.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

The "James nonsense" is nothing very profound, and in any case it was
already explained in my note as quoted. But here is another explanation,
since it was asked for.

Where the Greek text of the NT has IAKWB or IAKWBOS, Continental scholars
render as we might expect (eg, Dibelius, "Der Brief des Jakobus"). Anglo
scholars invariably substitute "James." But only in the NT; when they are
translating or discussing the OT, Bible readers instead encounter "Jacob."
This business of de-Judaizing the NT has long been obsolete, especially in
light of recent trends to restore Jewishness to Jesus (eg, Crossan, "The
Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant"). So far so
good. As for Jesus's brother, by way of tidying up the subject generally, it
would be welcome if someone would take the first move in the right
direction. Marcus in his preface to v1 notes the need to do so (articulated
by David Noel Freedman - I am still paraphrasing my original note), but does
not come up with sufficient nerve to follow through. Not that he would do so
in the gap between his v1 and v2, but his v1 was disappointing in this
regard.

Perhaps, as I earlier suggested, it needs an initiative from on high. The
English Queen, who as far as I am aware (and compared to Henry VIII) has so
far done very little in support of scholarship, might rename a highly
visible London entity, which in fact belongs to her, so that she can do with
it as she likes, as "the Court of Saint Jacob." Thus emboldened, and with
royal precedent and favor doing their bit, we might yet see something from
the rank and file of the learned but timid.

The roster of Jesus's brothers is an interesting one, and certainly implies
a strongly patriarchal and nationalistic family. Jacob, Joseph, Simon,
Judas. Half of these names, here and/or elsewhere (eg, "Epistle of Jude"),
and their important historical significance, are systematically masked for
the readers of English translations. I don't believe in keeping such
information concealed within the Guild of the Greeked. I believe in letting
it out. The public mind would need less correcting if it had been better
supplied in the first place.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

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> Karel,
>
> The "James nonsense" is nothing very profound, and in any case it was
> already explained in my note as quoted. But here is another explanation,
> since it was asked for.
>
> Where the Greek text of the NT has IAKWB or IAKWBOS, Continental scholars
> render as we might expect (eg, Dibelius, "Der Brief des Jakobus"). Anglo
> scholars invariably substitute "James." But only in the NT; when they are
> translating or discussing the OT, Bible readers instead encounter "Jacob."
> This business of de-Judaizing the NT has long been obsolete, especially in
> light of recent trends to restore Jewishness to Jesus (eg, Crossan, "The
> Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant"). So far so
> good. As for Jesus's brother, by way of tidying up the subject generally,
> it
> would be welcome if someone would take the first move in the right
> direction. Marcus in his preface to v1 notes the need to do so
> (articulated
> by David Noel Freedman - I am still paraphrasing my original note), but
> does
> not come up with sufficient nerve to follow through. Not that he would do
> so
> in the gap between his v1 and v2, but his v1 was disappointing in this
> regard.
>
> Perhaps, as I earlier suggested, it needs an initiative from on high. The
> English Queen, who as far as I am aware (and compared to Henry VIII) has
> so
> far done very little in support of scholarship, might rename a highly
> visible London entity, which in fact belongs to her, so that she can do
> with
> it as she likes, as "the Court of Saint Jacob." Thus emboldened, and with
> royal precedent and favor doing their bit, we might yet see something from
> the rank and file of the learned but timid.
>
> The roster of Jesus's brothers is an interesting one, and certainly
> implies
> a strongly patriarchal and nationalistic family. Jacob, Joseph, Simon,
> Judas. Half of these names, here and/or elsewhere (eg, "Epistle of Jude"),
> and their important historical significance, are systematically masked for
> the readers of English translations. I don't believe in keeping such
> information concealed within the Guild of the Greeked. I believe in
> letting
> it out. The public mind would need less correcting if it had been better
> supplied in the first place.
>
> Bruce
>
> E Bruce Brooks
> Warring States Project
> University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Even "Jacob" is an English transliteration and mispronounciation of the
Hebrew name Ya'qub. It was the single most popular name in the late 2nd
temple period and Yahosef (Joseph) was the second. Yeshua was the sixth and
in much the same manner as "James"being considered nonsense, you would have
to include "Jesus" (DJEE-zus).

Ya'qub (Yod-alef-qop-waw-beyt) was in Greek transliteration IAKOB (with the
masculin -OS
ending), hence IAKOBOS. The Hebrew/Aramaic YOD is represented in Greek by
IOTA and the "J" sound for YOD came to Middle English from French where the
phoneme exampled in "Jacques" was represented in English by the "DJ" sound.
YAqub was therefore represented in English as Jacob (DJAYcub) but the
trajectory of the Greek IAKOBOS passed through Old, Middle and Late Latin
into European Celtic and wound up transliterating M for the B from Saxon
use. So IACOBO, IAKOMO, IAGO and IAMES became JAMNES in French ("leg"
refering to Esau's heel) and Middle English and into the KJV as JAMES.

Now let's talk about James' brother, Jesus:

In pre-exilic times, the name Yehoshua consisted of two roots. The first,
yeho, is the theophoric referring to God. The second, shua, means "help"
and the name meant, "Whose help is God." In 2nd temple times, it became a
practice NOT to use full theophorics to prevent accidentally voicing the
name of God so the theophorics were truncated and Yehoshua became Y'shua.
In the Galilee, Aramaic was pronounced differently and Galileans dropped
their alefs and ayins like Cockney English drop their H's. Jesus' Galilean
friends would have called him Yeshu. Therefore, in Judea and formally, his
name was Yeshua, yehSHOO-ah, and in the Galilee his name was pronounced
Yeshu, pronounced YEHshoo. Because of strong Hellenistic influence in
Palestine at the time, some Jews with the name of Yeshua used a Greek
transliteration of the name. Yeshua ben Sirach was one of them who went by
the name IESOUS, pronounced YAYsoos. Hence, Yeshua was rendered IHSOUS. Iota
for yod, eta for the tsere voice, sigma for shin since Greek had no "sh" and
the masculine Greek ending. The Greek was pronouced YAYsoos and so it was
used in the Septuagint and Greek texts of the NT. The Latin IESVS followed
the Greek, pronounced the same way YAYsoos. Now, what about that pesky "J?"
The letter J was merely the CAPITAL i. It was pronounced as i and Isabel
was spelled Jsabel and Iesus was spelled Jesus. We owe the separation of J
and I to the French humanist Pierre de la Ramee in the 16th century and the
sound of "DJ" to Middle French so that by the time the KJV came about,
YAYsoos had become JAYsoos had become DJEEzus....or "Jesus."

I don't think the use of Jesus for Yeshua, James or Jakob for Ya'qub, Joseph
for Yahosef, Jude for Yehudah or Simon for Shymeon or even Nebuchadnezzar
for Nabu-Kudurri-Usur are "nonsense" because they are transliterated from
the original language to modern languages.

It would be literary chaos to try to use names of people or places in their
original languages in scriptures, histories, etc., wouldn't you think?

Jack

Jack Kilmon
San Antonio, TX

E Bruce Brooks

To: Synoptic In Response To: Jack Kilmon On: Jacob From: Bruce [I had recommended that the rendering of original Jacob by James in the NT (but not in the

Message 4 of 9
, Apr 13, 2009

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To: Synoptic
In Response To: Jack Kilmon
On: Jacob
From: Bruce

[I had recommended that the rendering of original "Jacob" by "James" in the
NT (but not in the OT) in the Anglophone world is an outmoded custom and
should stop; I appealed to the Queen to intervene].

Jack: Even "Jacob" is an English transliteration and mispronunciation of the
Hebrew name Ya'qub.

Bruce: Right. But short of teaching the whole populace Hebrew (I well
remember when the little daughter of a fellow grad student, just returned
from Taiwan, lined up her little playmates and undertook to drill them in
Chinese - for about three days), I will take what I can get. If I can in
fact get it. Here is what I think I can get:

There was a movement a while back, among the Hellenists (classical variety),
to render the names in the Iliad in a way more faithful to the Greek. This
led to some very intimidating formations. In effect, the readers were being
asked to absorb that part of the text in unmediated Greek. It is also not
difficult to see why a practical translator would feel safer in writing Hera
than Here. All this eventually brought on a relaxing of the original
position. This restored the more familiar if abraded versions of Greek
names, but continued to reject the Latin translation equivalents (in their
Anglicized form), eg Ulysses ( < Lt Ulixes) for Odysseus. The cultural
equilibrium point, so to speak, the best reachable deal between translator
and reader, seems to me well represented by Lattimore's Iliad translation;
see his headnote at p497. I would like to see the Lattimore Equilibrium
reached in other areas also.

So recommended.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

By the way, who has an in at Buckingham? Or more exactly at St James's (soon
to be renamed St Jacob's)? I think the guy I want is the Palace Master of
Ceremonies, but like one of Mark Twain's heroes, I can also accept an inside
track to his cousin, or his valet, or his best friend on pub evenings.

The present ruling house is of German origin, and an appeal to the precedent
of German scholarship (I mention again the model of Dibelius, Der Brief des
Jakobus) ought sooner or later to be cogent. That or money, but I am
reserving money as the ultimate last resort.

> To: Synoptic
> In Response To: Jack Kilmon
> On: Jacob
> From: Bruce
>
> [I had recommended that the rendering of original "Jacob" by "James" in
> the
> NT (but not in the OT) in the Anglophone world is an outmoded custom and
> should stop; I appealed to the Queen to intervene].
>
> Jack: Even "Jacob" is an English transliteration and mispronunciation of
> the
> Hebrew name Ya'qub.
>
> Bruce: Right. But short of teaching the whole populace Hebrew (I well
> remember when the little daughter of a fellow grad student, just returned
> from Taiwan, lined up her little playmates and undertook to drill them in
> Chinese - for about three days), I will take what I can get. If I can in
> fact get it. Here is what I think I can get:
>
> There was a movement a while back, among the Hellenists (classical
> variety),
> to render the names in the Iliad in a way more faithful to the Greek. This
> led to some very intimidating formations. In effect, the readers were
> being
> asked to absorb that part of the text in unmediated Greek. It is also not
> difficult to see why a practical translator would feel safer in writing
> Hera
> than Here. All this eventually brought on a relaxing of the original
> position. This restored the more familiar if abraded versions of Greek
> names, but continued to reject the Latin translation equivalents (in their
> Anglicized form), eg Ulysses ( < Lt Ulixes) for Odysseus. The cultural
> equilibrium point, so to speak, the best reachable deal between translator
> and reader, seems to me well represented by Lattimore's Iliad translation;
> see his headnote at p497. I would like to see the Lattimore Equilibrium
> reached in other areas also.
>
> So recommended.
>
> Bruce
>
> E Bruce Brooks
> Warring States Project
> University of Massachusetts at Amherst
>
> By the way, who has an in at Buckingham? Or more exactly at St James's
> (soon
> to be renamed St Jacob's)? I think the guy I want is the Palace Master of
> Ceremonies, but like one of Mark Twain's heroes, I can also accept an
> inside
> track to his cousin, or his valet, or his best friend on pub evenings.
>
> The present ruling house is of German origin, and an appeal to the
> precedent
> of German scholarship (I mention again the model of Dibelius, Der Brief
> des
> Jakobus) ought sooner or later to be cogent. That or money, but I am
> reserving money as the ultimate last resort.

To repeat the etymological trajectory, the Hebrew name Yaqub
(Yod-ayin-qop-beyt) is IAKWBOS in Greek, IACOBUS inLatin and IACOMUS in Late
Latin which gave to OLD FRENCH two variants, JAMES and JACQUES. Since
Middle Englishspeakers were heavily influenced by Norman French, JAMES was
preferred and first used in English in 1148 and used in the Wycliffe Bible
(1382-1395) as well as the Tyndale (1534) and the King James Version (1611).
It was not used in the KJV to suck up to James VI/I but it was the KJV that
popularized the name. You have about 700 years of English convention behind
the use of James in much the same as JOHN for the Hebrew Yehohanan. I would
not bet the mayonnaise farm that the Court of St. James will become
the"Sanhedrin of Reb Jakob" any time soon.

> To: Synoptic
> In Response To: Jack Kilmon
> On: Jacob
> From: Bruce
>
> [I had recommended that the rendering of original "Jacob" by "James" in
> the
> NT (but not in the OT) in the Anglophone world is an outmoded custom and
> should stop; I appealed to the Queen to intervene].
>
> Jack: Even "Jacob" is an English transliteration and mispronunciation of
> the
> Hebrew name Ya'qub.
>
> Bruce: Right. But short of teaching the whole populace Hebrew (I well
> remember when the little daughter of a fellow grad student, just returned
> from Taiwan, lined up her little playmates and undertook to drill them in
> Chinese - for about three days), I will take what I can get. If I can in
> fact get it. Here is what I think I can get:
>
> There was a movement a while back, among the Hellenists (classical
> variety),
> to render the names in the Iliad in a way more faithful to the Greek. This
> led to some very intimidating formations. In effect, the readers were
> being
> asked to absorb that part of the text in unmediated Greek. It is also not
> difficult to see why a practical translator would feel safer in writing
> Hera
> than Here. All this eventually brought on a relaxing of the original
> position. This restored the more familiar if abraded versions of Greek
> names, but continued to reject the Latin translation equivalents (in their
> Anglicized form), eg Ulysses ( < Lt Ulixes) for Odysseus. The cultural
> equilibrium point, so to speak, the best reachable deal between translator
> and reader, seems to me well represented by Lattimore's Iliad translation;
> see his headnote at p497. I would like to see the Lattimore Equilibrium
> reached in other areas also.
>
> So recommended.
>
> Bruce
>
> E Bruce Brooks
> Warring States Project
> University of Massachusetts at Amherst
>
> By the way, who has an in at Buckingham? Or more exactly at St James's
> (soon
> to be renamed St Jacob's)? I think the guy I want is the Palace Master of
> Ceremonies, but like one of Mark Twain's heroes, I can also accept an
> inside
> track to his cousin, or his valet, or his best friend on pub evenings.
>
> The present ruling house is of German origin, and an appeal to the
> precedent
> of German scholarship (I mention again the model of Dibelius, Der Brief
> des
> Jakobus) ought sooner or later to be cogent. That or money, but I am
> reserving money as the ultimate last resort.

To repeat the etymological trajectory, the Hebrew name Yaqub
(Yod-ayin-qop-beyt) is IAKWBOS in Greek, IACOBUS inLatin and IACOMUS in Late
Latin which gave to OLD FRENCH two variants, JAMES and JACQUES. Since
Middle Englishspeakers were heavily influenced by Norman French, JAMES was
preferred and first used in English in 1148 and used in the Wycliffe Bible
(1382-1395) as well as the Tyndale (1534) and the King James Version (1611).
It was not used in the KJV to suck up to James VI/I but it was the KJV that
popularized the name. You have about 700 years of English convention behind
the use of James in much the same as JOHN for the Hebrew Yehohanan. I would
not bet the mayonnaise farm that the Court of St. James will become
the"Sanhedrin of Reb Jakob" any time soon.

Jack

Jack Kilmon
San Antonio, TX

David Mealand

The exchange on biblical names has thrown up some interesting material on a) the political significance of the names of Jesus brothers and their relative

Message 7 of 9
, Apr 15, 2009

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The exchange on biblical names has
thrown up some interesting material
on a) the political significance
of the names of Jesus' brothers and
their relative frequencies in the
2nd Temple period and
on b) the older forms of several names and
their journey via Greek into English
Biblical translations.

I would be grateful if Bruce & Jack
could supply one or two specific
references to any published items
which may have informed either a) or b).
I am not requesting an exhaustive list
but just wish to know if the points made
are readily accessible in something
in print that can be cited when needed.

David M.

---------
David Mealand (University of Edinburgh)

------

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Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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